The Australian Baseball League is also quite strong. Austrialia, Italy, and the Netherlands are three countries where the game has a strong if small niche following. Since Aruba and Curacao are part of the Dutch realm many of the players in Hoofdklasse Honkball (High Class Baseball) hail from the islands where they enjoy interaction with other Caribbean basin countries. In addition to Panama, Nicaragua has a strong baseball tradition. Those two are the only Central American countries that have from time to time had pro leagues. Colombia is complicated. Most of country is mountainous and the big population centers there such as Medellin. Bogota, and Cali are more oriented towards the rest of the South American continent and thus are all about soccer. But the coastal area centered on Barranquilla is culturally and climatically much more like their Caribbean and Central American neighbors and have always had strong a baseball tradition, including a pro league. There have also been planned attempts at introducing baseball with little success. The short-lived Israeli Baseball League relied entirely on American born Jews and there was little home grown interest. China is a special case. As the Olympics host in 2008 they automatically qualified to field a team although there was no local knowledge or skills about the game. So as to embarass themselves the government spent a ton of money over several years building infrastructure and hiring foreign specialists to recruit and coach talented athletes. They parlayed that into a fledgling pro league which, unsurprisingly given that there are 1 billion people to choose from, put together a creditable effort. Meanwhile, Taiwan has had a longer baseball history, not dissimilar to that of Korea. The Taiwanese pro league has an arrangement unlike anywhere else. Their six(?) team league plays "circus" style. All the teams travel to one of the cities wherea round robin series among all is held, then they pack up and do the same at city B, C, etc. throughout the season. Around the corner there is expectation that pro leagues may spring up in New Zealand, South Africa, Germany, France and the Czech Republic. You mentioned Philippines and Sweden but I doubt either league is pro.
I watched all the lectures again today. I've watched them in their chronological order for the past few off seasons. Today the Negro Leagues stats were added to the MLB records and changed the landscape of the leader boards. You should complete all these lectures into one long form video as you first documentary. and hopefully you're working on your shadowball documentary. It's hard to find anything long form on the Negro Leagues. You should be the channel that drops that banger. Shadowball Innings 1-9
Regarding the DR, one of the leading figures in starting the pipeline to the US was Toronto super-scout Epy Guerrero. It is no accident that the Jays were largely the leaders in finding fine ballplayers from the DR (especially San Pedro de Macorís) starting in the 1970s. Epy was why. I have heard a lot of stories about Epy, many when I was in Knoxville when there Jays' AA team was there in the 80s, and I worked in the sports department of the Knoxville Journal. One story may have been apocryphal, but I heard it from more than one source with the Jays' organization. Epy was back in the DR at San Pedro de Macorís and was hanging out at a pickup game featuring several top ballplayers. One young man was slapping baseballs around, mostly out of the park. Epy knew the young man, a Phillies farmhand, Jorge Bell. Something clicked in his computer brain, and he called GM Pay Gillick in Toronto. Epy asked him what was Bell's status with the Phillies. Gillick checked and said Bell was not on the 40-man roster, and the Phils were putting the word out that Bell had a bad bum shoulder. About this time Bell launched one about 400 feet, and Epy told his boss that Bell's shoulder looked just fine. The Jays were huge fan of the Rule 5 draft, and plucked the young man in the subsequent draft. Under the Americaized name of George Bell.......well, if you followed baseball in the 80s and 90s, then ypu know the result.
Thanks for the comment. I know the name Epy Guerrero. He's similar to longtime Dodgers scout Ralph Avila (died just three weeks ago). Avila helped create the Dodgers first baseball academy in the DR. Signed two guys by the names of Pedro Martinez and Adrian Beltre.
@@jayfelsberg1931 To my knowledge, Tony DeMacio is the only scout in the HOF. Scouts are often unsung and franchise success depends greatly on their activities.
I would caution as an American-Israeli dual citizen that US influence in Israel is actually quite a lot less than most Americans seem to imagine. Baseball-playing countries are very poorly represented among immigrants and the political-cultural sphere is primarily focused on the rest of the Middle East and Europe. The 2007 league was a legendary fiasco, and while Israel has gone on to become seriously competitive in international play since then, most Israelis are totally unaware of that fact. In my experience, the national team is unquestionably more famous _outside_ the country than _within_ it. The only realistic possibility of changing that would be medaling in the Olympics, but I don't think anything else would suffice.
@@thebaseballprofessor Maybe if there was, it would have gone better. In any case, people got seriously hurt and a lot of the promised money never showed up, to the point that the players themselves never received their full salaries. The only detailed accounts of goings-on at the league come from the former players, so we can only speculate what the intentions were behind the scenes, except that it's kind of a perfect test subject for how _not_ to kickstart a professional sports league. Nowadays, the focus is entirely on cultivating local talent in order to field an international team that will bring more attention to the sport, and _then_ we can start talking about modest, homegrown professional play. The style of play is also much more heavily influenced by East Asia, with an emphasis on speed over power and an overall disregard for the solemnity of North America's Unwritten Rules.
Pretty much most other socialist countries gave their players no show jobs. For example Dynamo Moscow was the KGB team, and then there was the Red Army team. But other teams are called metalgursk(metallurgists) and would have a no show job at a factory. Essentially factories, police departments and other industries would essentially have a company owned sports teams. I’m more familiar with how Soviet professional sports worked.
Here are a few opinions/comments. First, the WBC demonstrates just how strong baseball is in East Asia. Six of the seven Japan WBC games had audiences over 30 million. Second, exciting, excellent players participated. That's an improvement from some years where team USA didn't field its very best. Third, spectators showed up at the stadiums. That's a good sign. Fourth, more countries participated. That's a good sign. Fifth, I'm very curious to see if the current momentum carries over to 2026. Your thoughts?
@@thebaseballprofessor Yeah I agree. The sport of baseball is in a very well placed position in the international sports landscape it feels. They really have a chance to grow the game in places we can't even fathom right now. My main qualm is the heritage rule. Looking at Team Italy most of their players are Italian American and would not help grow the game in the country. If they change that rule I feel the tournament will take off. 2026 should attract bigger names which should result in bigger moments. Very excited about the future of the sport as a whole.
The Australian Baseball League is also quite strong. Austrialia, Italy, and the Netherlands are three countries where the game has a strong if small niche following. Since Aruba and Curacao are part of the Dutch realm many of the players in Hoofdklasse Honkball (High Class Baseball) hail from the islands where they enjoy interaction with other Caribbean basin countries. In addition to Panama, Nicaragua has a strong baseball tradition. Those two are the only Central American countries that have from time to time had pro leagues. Colombia is complicated. Most of country is mountainous and the big population centers there such as Medellin. Bogota, and Cali are more oriented towards the rest of the South American continent and thus are all about soccer. But the coastal area centered on Barranquilla is culturally and climatically much more like their Caribbean and Central American neighbors and have always had strong a baseball tradition, including a pro league. There have also been planned attempts at introducing baseball with little success. The short-lived Israeli Baseball League relied entirely on American born Jews and there was little home grown interest. China is a special case. As the Olympics host in 2008 they automatically qualified to field a team although there was no local knowledge or skills about the game. So as to embarass themselves the government spent a ton of money over several years building infrastructure and hiring foreign specialists to recruit and coach talented athletes. They parlayed that into a fledgling pro league which, unsurprisingly given that there are 1 billion people to choose from, put together a creditable effort. Meanwhile, Taiwan has had a longer baseball history, not dissimilar to that of Korea. The Taiwanese pro league has an arrangement unlike anywhere else. Their six(?) team league plays "circus" style. All the teams travel to one of the cities wherea round robin series among all is held, then they pack up and do the same at city B, C, etc. throughout the season. Around the corner there is expectation that pro leagues may spring up in New Zealand, South Africa, Germany, France and the Czech Republic. You mentioned Philippines and Sweden but I doubt either league is pro.
Ted Williams was half Mexican. His Mexican born uncle Saul introduced him to the game.
This was a extremely interested video. Thank you for posting it.
I watched all the lectures again today. I've watched them in their chronological order for the past few off seasons.
Today the Negro Leagues stats were added to the MLB records and changed the landscape of the leader boards. You should complete all these lectures into one long form video as you first documentary. and hopefully you're working on your shadowball documentary. It's hard to find anything long form on the Negro Leagues. You should be the channel that drops that banger.
Shadowball Innings 1-9
Regarding the DR, one of the leading figures in starting the pipeline to the US was Toronto super-scout Epy Guerrero. It is no accident that the Jays were largely the leaders in finding fine ballplayers from the DR (especially San Pedro de Macorís) starting in the 1970s. Epy was why.
I have heard a lot of stories about Epy, many when I was in Knoxville when there Jays' AA team was there in the 80s, and I worked in the sports department of the Knoxville Journal.
One story may have been apocryphal, but I heard it from more than one source with the Jays' organization. Epy was back in the DR at San Pedro de Macorís and was hanging out at a pickup game featuring several top ballplayers. One young man was slapping baseballs around, mostly out of the park. Epy knew the young man, a Phillies farmhand, Jorge Bell. Something clicked in his computer brain, and he called GM Pay Gillick in Toronto. Epy asked him what was Bell's status with the Phillies. Gillick checked and said Bell was not on the 40-man roster, and the Phils were putting the word out that Bell had a bad bum shoulder. About this time Bell launched one about 400 feet, and Epy told his boss that Bell's shoulder looked just fine. The Jays were huge fan of the Rule 5 draft, and plucked the young man in the subsequent draft. Under the Americaized name of George Bell.......well, if you followed baseball in the 80s and 90s, then ypu know the result.
Thanks for the comment. I know the name Epy Guerrero. He's similar to longtime Dodgers scout Ralph Avila (died just three weeks ago). Avila helped create the Dodgers first baseball academy in the DR. Signed two guys by the names of Pedro Martinez and Adrian Beltre.
@@thebaseballprofessor An excellent comparison. Is there a place in the HOF for scouts?
@@jayfelsberg1931 To my knowledge, Tony DeMacio is the only scout in the HOF. Scouts are often unsung and franchise success depends greatly on their activities.
I would caution as an American-Israeli dual citizen that US influence in Israel is actually quite a lot less than most Americans seem to imagine. Baseball-playing countries are very poorly represented among immigrants and the political-cultural sphere is primarily focused on the rest of the Middle East and Europe. The 2007 league was a legendary fiasco, and while Israel has gone on to become seriously competitive in international play since then, most Israelis are totally unaware of that fact. In my experience, the national team is unquestionably more famous _outside_ the country than _within_ it. The only realistic possibility of changing that would be medaling in the Olympics, but I don't think anything else would suffice.
Why do you reckon the 2007 league got off the ground in the first place? Was there American money backing the league?
@@thebaseballprofessor Maybe if there was, it would have gone better. In any case, people got seriously hurt and a lot of the promised money never showed up, to the point that the players themselves never received their full salaries. The only detailed accounts of goings-on at the league come from the former players, so we can only speculate what the intentions were behind the scenes, except that it's kind of a perfect test subject for how _not_ to kickstart a professional sports league.
Nowadays, the focus is entirely on cultivating local talent in order to field an international team that will bring more attention to the sport, and _then_ we can start talking about modest, homegrown professional play. The style of play is also much more heavily influenced by East Asia, with an emphasis on speed over power and an overall disregard for the solemnity of North America's Unwritten Rules.
How about basketball 🏀?
How popular is it in Israel?
Let's not forget that Basketball is also an American invention.
Pretty much most other socialist countries gave their players no show jobs. For example Dynamo Moscow was the KGB team, and then there was the Red Army team. But other teams are called metalgursk(metallurgists) and would have a no show job at a factory. Essentially factories, police departments and other industries would essentially have a company owned sports teams. I’m more familiar with how Soviet professional sports worked.
Loved this video. Would love to know your opinions on the future of international baseball and this most recent WBC?
Here are a few opinions/comments. First, the WBC demonstrates just how strong baseball is in East Asia. Six of the seven Japan WBC games had audiences over 30 million. Second, exciting, excellent players participated. That's an improvement from some years where team USA didn't field its very best. Third, spectators showed up at the stadiums. That's a good sign. Fourth, more countries participated. That's a good sign. Fifth, I'm very curious to see if the current momentum carries over to 2026. Your thoughts?
@@thebaseballprofessor Yeah I agree. The sport of baseball is in a very well placed position in the international sports landscape it feels. They really have a chance to grow the game in places we can't even fathom right now. My main qualm is the heritage rule. Looking at Team Italy most of their players are Italian American and would not help grow the game in the country. If they change that rule I feel the tournament will take off. 2026 should attract bigger names which should result in bigger moments. Very excited about the future of the sport as a whole.
I went to several Japanese baseball games in the 1970’s. Fishy hot dogs.
The New York Mets had a player born in Belfast in 2019.
They had a 2 yr old on their team??? How did I not hear about this?
Check out one of the YT videos on Finland’s “baseball” pesapallo
Outside of the canceled 2020 llws(i wonder what for😝), its been played every year since its creation